A.R. Winters - Tiffany Black 02 - Green Eyes in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  Most people leave Vegas after a few days. There are so few of us locals that we all know each other – Stone had especially good contacts in security, but if he couldn’t find someone, I was sure I could find an old high-school classmate, or son of a family friend, who worked over there and could get me through. If nothing else, Nanna would find the son or daughter of one her Old People’s Gang friends and put me in touch with them.

  But that wasn’t necessary. Stone rang back within a few minutes. “I talked to the head of security at MontePatria,” he said. “He’s happy to help out. An employee of his, guy named Scott Rodriguez, will meet you at reception.”

  “Small world,” I said. Scott and I had been in high-school together. He’d seemed like a nice kid, but we hadn’t been particularly close. Most of us who’d been to school together never managed to leave Vegas; we all seemed to work for the casinos in some capacity or the other.

  “How about your stalker?” Stone asked. “Any sign?”

  “Nope. I guess you’re right about him staying away from casinos. Or maybe he’s lost interest.”

  I hung up and headed toward The MontePatria, walking slowly down the Strip and looking over my shoulder once in a while.

  The MontePatria Casino is a large, popular casino located near the south end of the Strip. They do booming business no matter what, have large, gaudy water fountains out front, and a massive team of employees.

  Scott was lanky, bespectacled and apparently still constantly acne-prone. He came down to meet me, and handed me a guest pass so I could access the security area.

  “Kate told me you’re trying to be a PI,” he said, mentioning another of our old classmates.

  I nodded. “You don’t have any jobs for me here, do you?”

  “No, we’re laying people off.”

  “Really? I thought The MontePatria’s profits were up.”

  He winced. “Profits are up. They’re cutting costs so profits stay up.”

  We were silent after that, and as we rode up in the elevator, I texted him the photos of Crystal that were on my phone.

  “This her?” he asked, and I nodded.

  I followed Scott into the security room. I’d never been inside before, and I glanced around at the dozens of TV screens, relaying everything that was going on down in the pit. I looked away quickly, feeling like a voyeur.

  Scott had his own mini-station, with six 21-inch monitors. He pressed a few buttons on his phone, and Crystal’s photo appeared on one of the monitors.

  “I’ll run a facial recognition scan,” he told me. “When was this convention?”

  I gave him the dates, and Scott pressed a bunch of keys. A rotating circle appeared on his screen, and then a match quickly flashed up.

  We watched as Crystal entered the casino that day and headed straight to the Indie Movie Convention. The first thirty minutes of footage were yawn-inducingly boring. We watched as she flipped her hair, greeted some people she knew and was introduced to new people.

  Half an hour in, I noticed her glancing over her shoulder.

  “There!” I said. “She’s looking in that direction.”

  Scott pulled up a layout of the cameras in the room on one of his monitors.

  “This is the feed we’re watching now,” he said. “She’s looking in this direction, so…”

  He switched to a different camera, and I saw him. Average height, dark brown hair, and a big camera.

  “That’s the guy!” I said. “Can we get a better look at him?”

  Scott fiddled around with various camera feeds, and we watched the guy walk around, taking photos once in a while. To an outside observer, he looked like just another photography enthusiast. He was even wearing an “I Love Las Vegas” t-shirt that made him look like a regular tourist.

  Other than taking a couple of photos of Crystal, the guy did nothing that seemed suspicious. We watched him for another thirty minutes while he took photos, stood around, and finally left. I kept expecting him to do something crazy – maybe walk up to Crystal and threaten her, or at the very least, steal food off the buffet table. But he seemed normal.

  “Go back,” I told Scott, “Let’s watch him walk in.”

  Scott looked bored, but he played the feed backwards, at a slightly faster speed so we could get through it quicker. I was grateful for the faster speed, because once again, the guy did nothing particularly suspicious.

  Scott looked at me. “Now what?”

  I took a deep breath. I was out of ideas, and I couldn’t lose this one lead I had.

  “Run facial recognition,” I suggested. “Maybe he came into the casino some other day.”

  Scott paused the video and clicked some buttons.

  “Bingo!” he said. “One other match. The guy came in two weeks ago.”

  He pulled up the footage, set it to double speed, and we both watched the guy walk into the casino, head into a conference room, and begin to take photo after photo. I frowned. Some of the shots were candid, but in others, he was asking people to pose for him.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  It looked like a pretty boring event, full of middle-aged guys in shorts and t-shirts, men who’d clearly never seen the inside of a gym. Half of them wore glasses, and most of them were engrossed in serious-looking conversations. There were the obligatory Vegas chorus girls walking around, trying to pass out brochures, wearing headdresses bigger than their bikinis.

  “That’s the Pearson Conference Room,” Scott said. “I’ll look up what was on that day… International Ruby on Rails Developers Conference.”

  We shared a glance and Scott shrugged. He pulled up the brochure for the event, and we read through it together: “RailsConf, the largest gathering of Ruby on Rails developers in the world, is coming to Las Vegas! Join us and connect with top Rails talent, companies, and project owners from around the world.” It went on to list sponsors, a schedule of events, and people involved in organizing the “exciting” conference.

  Scott said, “Maybe he’s the guy mentioned here. Rupert Brown, official photographer.”

  “It’s worth a shot.”

  There was nothing else to go on, so I copied Rupert’s contact details off the brochure, thanked Scott for his help, and went downstairs to give Rupert a call.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rupert answered the phone after two rings.

  “This is Gloria Smith,” I told him. “I’m one of the organizers of RubyConf, where you helped out?”

  “Um, yes?”

  He sounded hesitant, but I pressed on. “We’ve had a great response to the photos you took, and one of our sponsors gave us a free Nikon DSLR camera. I was wondering if you’d like to have it? For free, of course.”

  I was a bit surprised when he took more than a few seconds to respond. I would’ve jumped on the offer straight away, but I guess he couldn’t remember any Gloria Smith and was a bit skeptical of the whole thing.

  “Great,” I said, after he agreed to take it. “What’s your address? I’ll drop it off.”

  There was another pause. Finally, he said, “4B, 1565 Balzar Avenue.”

  “Thanks,” I said, sounding far more cheerful than I felt. “I’ll stop by in a few minutes.”

  Balzar Avenue is a not-so-nice neighborhood just north-east of the Strip. Houses along the street have thick iron bars on their windows and heavy locks on their front doors. I hadn’t been looking forward to meeting Rupert, and now I wasn’t looking forward to going to his house. I wondered if there hadn’t been some way to trick him into coming out to meet me, but I didn’t think he’d willingly co-operate in investigating Crystal’s murder.

  So I took a deep breath, and walked back to my condo.

  I didn’t see any new envelopes when I opened my door, which made me feel a tiny bit better, but not much. Someone who lived in Balzar Avenue didn’t just secure their property; they learned how to get through that neighborhood at night, which meant they were either tough and strong, or armed. Or both.


  I packed my bag for the visit to Rupert’s with that in mind. I found my gun and my pepper spray, and stuffed them in. I don’t have a permit to carry concealed yet, and I wasn’t sure how much they’d help if Rupert was dangerous, but it was worth a shot.

  1565 Balzar Avenue turned out to be a large block of boring apartments. There was a massive carpark in front, and a number of cars were still parked there. The building itself looked like it’d been built during the 1970s, and was two stories high with a red brick facade. I climbed up the stairs, and rang the bell to number 4B.

  Rupert answered the door and peered out at me. Up close, he didn’t seem particularly menacing, and bore an expression hovering between suspicion and hope. His face still had traces of baby fat, and his blue eyes and wispy hair made him look slightly immature. He was wearing khaki shorts and a baby-blue t-shirt, and as far as I could see, he wasn’t carrying a gun.

  I could see bits of the apartment through the open door – the entrance opened into a small living area, and a hallway veered off behind it, presumably leading to the bedroom and bathroom. There was a couch just to my left, with hoodies, socks and t-shirts strewn all over it, and a coffee table decorated with two used bowls and a mug.

  “You’re Gloria?” Rupert asked warily, and I smiled.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the camera?”

  “Um,” I said. “I didn’t actually bring it.”

  Rupert frowned. “What do you want, then? I’m not buying anything, and I don’t have any money to donate.”

  I took a deep breath, fished a business card out of my bag and handed it over to him. “I’m a private investigator. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions?”

  Rupert stared at the card and then up at me. His eyes looked a bit wider, and some of the blood seemed to have drained from his face.

  “It’s about Crystal Macombe,” I told him, and he shook his head.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  He moved forward to close the door, and I smiled. “Maybe you’d rather talk to the cops? I can give them the photos you took of her.”

  He froze and looked at me, and then looked down at my card. “She’s dead. Why are you bothering me about her?”

  “Did you kill her?”

  The question came out more abruptly than I’d intended, and we stared at each other. And then Rupert shook his head. “No, of course not. Why would I kill her?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  He crossed his arms and looked at me belligerently. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Then maybe you can tell me why you were stalking her.”

  “I wasn’t stalking her.”

  “You took those photos of her. I’ve got proof.”

  “I wasn’t stalking her.”

  I sighed. “I just told you I’ve got proof. I might as well give the cops the video of you stalking her.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Rupert sighed and his shoulders slumped forward.

  “Fine,” he said. “Come in.”

  I stepped inside warily, clutching my handbag, prepared to reach for the pepper spray at any second.

  Rupert sat down on a black chair opposite the sofa, put his head in his hands and groaned.

  “I knew this would happen,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I knew something would go wrong.”

  I used my forefinger and thumb to pick a hoodie off the sofa, and sat down gingerly on the edge. I kept my handbag on my lap and tried to look sympathetic. “What would go wrong?”

  Rupert lifted up his head and looked at me. “I just wanted to be a photographer,” he said. “Moved down here ’cause apparently there’s good money being a convention photographer, and what do I get? Nothing. No jobs, nothing, and I gotta pay the bills waiting tables. I live in a crummy house in a crummy street and I don’t know the right people.”

  I looked around the room I was sitting in. Rupert didn’t seem creepy enough to be a stalker, and something was missing in his apartment. The realization hit me just as I was staring at one of the dirty bowls on the coffee table – where was the wall idolizing Crystal? The one with a collage of photos that he’d taken of her, maybe even a few with him inserted into them with Photoshop? His walls were bare except for a calendar featuring kittens playing with yarn.

  “Tell me about Crystal,” I said. “Why were you stalking her?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t stalking her. Not really.”

  I pulled out the photos of Crystal that her boyfriend had given me, and handed them over to Rupert. “What were these?”

  Rupert looked at them and sighed. “I was just meant to act like a stalker. Crystal found me through my website and gave me a call. She said she was trying to break into Hollywood, and someone told her that a stalker would help her get famous. So that was me. She’d tell people at the Indie Movie Convention that she had a stalker, people would think she’d be a hot actress, she’d get jobs, and I’d get paid.”

  His eyes were earnest and pleading, but I said, “That doesn’t sound very believable.”

  “I can prove it,” he said, standing up quickly, and I found myself getting to my feet and slipping a hand inside my bag to find the pepper spray.

  But he didn’t come toward me. He headed toward the kitchen instead, and reappeared after a few seconds, pressing buttons on his cell phone. “Listen,” he said.

  A woman’s recorded voice floated out to me from the phone. “Hey, Ru,” she said. “Thanks for the photos. I think, like, I don’t need any more, so I’ll just pay you for these. Bye.”

  It was creepy, hearing the voice of someone who’d died, and I looked at Rupert.

  “She left this message the day after the convention,” he said. “And she paid me straight after. I never saw her again, and I’ve got nothing to do with her death, I swear.”

  “Lucky you didn’t delete that message,” I said suspiciously.

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t find the time to.”

  “Anyone else know about this?”

  “Yeah… the guy who suggested it to her.” He frowned and squinted his eyes, trying to remember, and then his face brightened up. “Got it! Sam something. She said he was the director of a movie she was going to work for.”

  I sighed. So far, his story added up, and I’d just need to check the details with Sam.

  Of course, stalking Crystal as a job didn’t mean that he hadn’t killed her. I said, “Where were you the night Crystal died?”

  Rupert snorted. “You mean, do I have an alibi? Sure. I was waiting tables at The BlueFish restaurant till late, and then I had a few drinks at Paris Bar, hoping to meet someone. Everyone at the bar saw me.”

  “And did you meet anyone?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Women like high-rollers, they don’t want a guy who waits tables and lives on Balzar Avenue.”

  I smiled. “Maybe you should live somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  We said goodbye, and I walked out in a rush of exhaled breath, feeling much better once I was sitting in my car with the doors locked. I drove away as fast as I could, thankful that despite what the rest of my life might be like, I didn’t have to wait tables and live in a depressing apartment in a depressing neighborhood.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once I got back to my condo, I parked, removed the gun and pepper spray, and walked over to The Tremonte to meet Sam Rampell.

  The set looked different now, somehow more chaotic. There were people running around; a fight scene was being shot and a cameraman with a camera dolly was following the actors. I noticed Minnie trying to apply makeup to three different girls at once. Sam stood and watched, alternating between saying things to the cameraman and actors, and putting his hands on his head and looking frustrated.

  He nodded when he saw me, and I went over to him and waited silently till the scene was over.

  “Can I talk to you in a few minutes?” he said. “I’
m just trying to wrap up a few more scenes before the extras have to take off. I’m only paying them for half the day.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll talk to the actors who weren’t here this morning.”

  I did that for the next hour or so, and it was mind-numbingly boring. I learnt nothing new, and had to keep introducing myself over and over again. I was getting nowhere, so it was a relief to hear Sam yell, “Take five, people!”

  I was at his side quickly, and he smiled at me, the force of his charisma hitting me like a gust of strong wind.

  “I’m all yours,” he said. “At least for the next five to ten minutes.”

  I smiled. “Tell me about Crystal.”

  His brown eyes grew thoughtful, and he stared off at a point behind me. “She was lovely. Gorgeous person, good actor. I knew she’d hit it big, and I wanted my movie to be her first. She could’ve done so well in Hollywood.”

  He let out a disappointed sigh and looked back at me.

  “If she was so good,” I said, “Why not give her a bigger role?”

  Sam smiled. “She was good, she just needed to prove herself.”

  “Do you think anyone might’ve been jealous of her? Did she have any enemies?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. I don’t think she was famous enough to have haters, but it’s possible. Maybe someone new met her and didn’t like that she’d get a role here.”

  I nodded. So far, everyone I’d talked to on the set seemed to either have liked Crystal or been unaware of her existence, but maybe someone at the strip club had learnt of her new role and become jealous.

  “How about you?” I said. “Do you have any haters?”

  Sam smiled. “Just about everyone on set hates me. I’m the director, it’s my job to be hated.”

  I couldn’t help liking this guy. “I talked to a guy named Rupert today. Know him?”

  Sam squinted at me and shook his head, no.

  “He’s a photographer. Maybe you forgot his name – he said Crystal hired him to take her photos? Pretend to be a stalker?”